Josiah Harlan

A few weeks back, perhaps you'll recall, a friend told me, with some pride, that it was a Unionville native who came up with  the idea for the U.S. Camel Corps. I did some research online and came up with nothing.
But two readers were quick to confirm that Josiah Harlan, born in Newlin Township in 1799, was indeed the man. Both readers sent me a fascinating article about Harlan entitled "The Life and Times of an Adventurous Quaker" by Dr. Daniel Rolph, Historian and Head of Reference Services at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Harlan spent many years in military service in Afghanistan and India, and when he returned to America he proposed using camels as pack animals:
"In 1855, Jefferson Davis (then Secretary of War for the United States, later the President of the Confederate States of American during the Civil War) allocated $30,000 to purchase camels for American forces to be used in the Southwest. Harlan advocated the camels be obtained from Afghanistan while the U.S. government opted for those from Africa. Regardless, the American Camel Corps was short-lived."
Dr. Rolph notes that Harlan was the exception to the belief that all Quakers are "predominantly pacifists, or non-aggressive in nature."
He also writes that Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King" "was based in part upon the life and experiences of Harlan while he resided in the border area of the Punjab in India and what is now Afghanistan."